Volador injury, LU season four notes

CMLL (MON) 02/19/2018Arena Puebla [2018 is Lucha Libre, CMLL]
1) Astro & Centella Roja b Ares & Fuerza Chicanatecnicos took 1/3.
2) Flyer & Príncipe Diamante b El Perverso & Rey Apocalipsistecnicos took 2/3
3) El Malayo, Kawato San, Universo 2000 Jr. b Lestat, Pegasso, Stigmarudos took 2/3
4) Cuatrero, Forastero, Sansón b Johnny Idol, Kráneo, Okumurarudos took 2/3
5) Soberano Jr. b Mephisto [lightning] Soberano won clean with a tornillo, setting up a title match next week.
6) Cavernario & Volador Jr. DQ Último Guerrero & Valiente [Relevos Increíbles] Volador was hurt in the first fall when he tripped over Ultimo Guerrero, stumbled, and his face hit the top rope. He bled heavily from the nose and looked groggy by the end of the match. Team Volador took 2/3, the last when Valiente pinned Cavernario after a missed Volador superkick and UG fouled Volador. Valiente was upset by UG’s action, and the rudos ended up beating up the tecnicos to set up a normal tag match.

The only one I’ve caught so far is the main event, where Volador got hurt. It was a freak accident. Volador seemed momentarily surprised but not too hurt at first, then increasingly out of it as the match went along. The ringside medic checked on him before the third fall, with Volador only looking worse after. This was a time where they probably should’ve just ended the match early and tried to go thru their entire match anyway. Volador isn’t listed on a card until Friday. I assume he’ll still be in that match but I hope he’ll be OK.

Friday’s lineup has a couple of changes, which was expected when they had to repeat the card. Mistico is booked in Tijuana on Friday, so he’s off the show. Caristico is off too, so he’s probably got another commitment. Atlantis gets bumped up to the semimain (with Dragon Lee & Angel de Oro vs NGD) and Marco & Stuka are added to the card. CMLL also announced, if you bought tickets for last Friday’s show, you have to come to Arena Mexico to exchange the tickets for this Friday’s show by Thursday. They’ll also offer refunds in person for tickets bought at Ticketmaster.

CMLL’s changed Sunday lineup so Pierroth is in for Gran Guerrero. That would put Pierroth opposite Dragon Lee, which breaks the CMLL rule against father versus son matches. They’d normally just shuffle Pierroth into the semifinal, except Mistico is in that match. CMLL’s allowed exceptions in rare occasions, so this will be one of those or another change. Universo 2000 Jr., Disturbio and Shockercito also replace Puma, Tiger and Ultimo Dragoncito on Sunday.

A poster for a May show in Guanajuato lists the main event as Atlantis vs Penta 0M vs Xtreme Tiger. That’s remarkable for a show being advertised three months in advance, and for Penta & Atlantis being in the same ring. CMLL seem to have indicated to promoters they do not want most of their guys in matches (or sometimes even shows) with the The Crash wrestlers even while Rush was allowed to work those shows. A card three months out is likely to change.

Judging from social media posts, today is the day where many Lucha Underground wrestlers will be coming to Los Angeles to begin work on Season 4. Some people have already been in, some people will be in later, but the sprint to tape all of a season’s worth of episodes in a short period of time appears to be underway.

Chris DeJoseph was interviewed at the Wrestling Guy’s Store, and the audio was broadcast live on their site; the Wrestling Guy runs the merchandise stand at the temple, and LU is sending wrestlers to the store every night they’re not taping this week. As always, you should listen to the full audio to get context, and a lot of talk about the ticket situation. It does sound like “a place where we can seat more people” was one of the original goals for the new venue, but they ended up loving the possibilities of the place they’re at so much that they settled for having about exactly the same seating capacity. The big hope with the new ticketing system is that while they still hope LU people hang out before the show and have fun, that they don’t stand in line all afternoon and end up exhausted before the end of the show by assigning them seats.

DeJoseph is asked about the themes of Lucha Underground Season 4 and comes up with “rebirth” & “sacrifice”. The change in locations will be explained in episode 1, and a has real world benefit of giving them more room elsewhere in the building for other sets away from the main area which will allow them to be more efficient. The building itself is nicer & cleaner to work with, though the surrounding neighborhood is not quite as nice. They’ve integrated the existing freezer environment into their set, and people will have new places to jump off of. They believe they’ll be able to some things they couldn’t do in the original Temple.

The tapings will take place over four weeks. Every episode is already written, but they’re aware that they have a small timespan and an injury could throw everything off. Season 3 had a lot of stuff taped out of order, but they plan on taping in order in Season 4. There may be exceptions, there may be situations where someone is only brought in for a single weekend to save on travel costs and they go a bit out of order. DeJoseph doesn’t feel the quality of the show will go down with budget costs, even the vignettes – he feels like they’re smarter at how do them after three seasons and will be able to do them more efficiently.

DeJoseph said five wrestlers are scheduled to debut in the first weekend alone implying even more may be added. He described that first weekend of shows with an explosion noise – not that they’re going to do an explosion match, but that there’s going to be big happenings. DeJoseph specifically mentions the Mil Muertes/Catrina/Fenix/Jeremiah Crane storyline as something that’ll be addressed early on. Later, when talking about ideas wrestlers have come up with, DeJoseph alludes to a Ricky Mundo storyline that seemed to be dropped but was always planned to come back later and will be seen in Season 4. (This is likely about those mysterious photos.) In general, the talent hasn’t been told what they’re going to be doing in season 4 and won’t find out until they arrive.

DeJoseph assured us Penta & Fenix will be back. He gave the same answer both he and everyone else with LU have given about Sexy Star every time: wrestling is crazy, she’s always been great to deal with in their own experience (so don’t judge her by one bad moment), they’re not going to reveal if she’s going to be on Season 4 but they’re a big believer in resolving all storylines so it’ll be addressed.

Other notes

AAA Xalapa promoter LG Promociones says they’ll be holding an AAA Visorias – a tryout – in March. They confirm it’s a part of a TV taping in the comments. That would be the fifth known AAA TV taping of the month. That’d be the first time with five main line TV AAA tapings since 2009. I’m unsure why they’re taping so much more.

Vampiro briefly posted the 03/25 Monterrey TV lineup overnight because there was something on the card he was happy about. I got was a small thumbnail. I’m sure it’ll be announced soon enough.

Aqui La Lucha points out it’s the 10th anniversary of the introduction of NWA Mexico, a promotion who’s only visible impact was to cause CMLL to rename some title belts. Some of the more prominent current indie stars did work on those few NWA Mexico shows, but I’ve never been able to figure out if someone running NWA Mexico specifically had them as trainees or if those guys were just working all the indies and just were noticed because the NWA Mexico shows got attention for a time.

I just watched the card, and judging from the crowd, NGD were the defacto faces, plus I should have figured that the team with 2 foreigners would be the rudos. On another note, I can’t believe how gutsy Volador Jr. was, in finishing his match. He was definitely out of it. His stock as a worker just went up, IMHO.